I sat down to dinner with my ontological mentor coach, Croft Edwards, a few weeks ago. It was a magical reunion for me, reconnecting with a man who played a pivotal role in shaping me as a coach.

I thought back to when we first began working together three years ago. I had so much to learn. After reviewing my first coaching session, he said, “That was a great consultative coaching session.” It felt like a slap in the face. I knew as a coach, I was not supposed to be consultative. He followed that statement up with, “That’s right where you need to be right now.”

Three years and 1,500 coaching hours later, I show up very differently as a coach. And that first session with Croft is an anchor point for me, helping me appreciate how much I’ve grown.

What Is An Anchor Point?

We live our lives one day at a time (unless you’ve learned to access nonlinear time, but that’s a conversation for another day). Experiencing every moment of our lives makes it hard for us to appreciate how we change over time.

Most of the people we know have a very different experience of us. Some may see us every day. Others may see us once a year at an annual event or go several years between connections. We form new relationships along the way – people who know nothing at all about who we were up until that moment in time when you met.

Anchor points are points in time we can use as an anchor, to compare our current way of being to how we showed up in the past. They allow us to shift our perspective from the day-to-day evolution to a broader time scale and see our growth the way someone who hasn’t connected with us for an extended period would.

I have the honor of conducting 360 feedback reviews for 30 senior leaders at an exceptional company. As part of that debrief, I ask the leader to walk me through their leadership journey, focusing on three distinct phases:

• Their early, formative years, from childhood through their education.
• Their career-building years, at the front-end of their professional career.
• The current period up to the present.

These phases give the leaders anchor points to reflect on their journey. It crystallizes how they have changed and grown from childhood, education, early careers, and now. It also shines a light on areas where they have not changed, often identifying key experiences in childhood that still shape their way of being today.

What Are Your Anchor Points?

Consider the life events that can serve as anchor points to prompt reflection on how you have grown over time.

An obvious one for all of us is the initial outbreak of COVID-19. I know this brought a fundamental shift in my way of being, including a change to working remotely and a heightened focus on my physical health. Consider how you have changed since that time.

Throughout my career, I had two major conferences each year, spaced roughly six months apart – Ellucian Live in the spring and EDUCAUSE in the fall. These served as natural anchor points for me. Preparing for the conference intuitively brought me back to the prior conference and what has changed for me personally and professionally. In my coaching years, that change has been more dramatic. Every six months, I look back at the prior conference and recognize that I’m a completely different person.

Your career offers many candidate anchor points, whether you are switching companies, switching roles within a company, or changing careers entirely.

Your friends and family bring many opportunities for anchor points. Marriage and divorce. Becoming a parent. Losing a parent. Forming new friendships. Joining a community.

How Have You Changed?

Once you’ve selected an anchor point (or many), take time to reflect on how you’ve changed since that time.

• Have your values changed over this time?
• What’s important to you now, and how is that different from what was important to you then?
• If someone met Anchor Point You for the first time and then met Present Day You, what would they say has changed?

I wrote about one of my favorite anchor points in my post, You’re Not The Leader You Think You Are. Here’s an excerpt:

I remember sitting in my first divisional meeting and listening to Tom speak about our strategy. Tom led the division. His vision filled me with inspiration and sometimes gave me chills. Throughout my career, I looked up to Tom. He was a role model for me and a great source of inspiration.

Fifteen years later, Tom had been promoted, and I stood before that same division as their leader. I felt confident in my abilities and the achievements that had earned me this role. Like many of us, I also had a heavy dose of imposter syndrome. I was still the fresh-out-of-school software developer, the newly promoted manager who kept the challenging programming problems for himself, and the young director who had no idea how to manage managers.

That anchor point helped me take the perspective of a new developer and realize they saw me the way I saw Tom. They didn’t see me grow over those 15 years, they simply saw me as the person who led the division. They saw the end product of those 15 years of growth.

How does the perspective of someone meeting you for the first time compare to the perspective you hold in your head?

What Has Not Changed?

Perhaps less obvious, but equally important, is reflecting on how you have not changed over this period.

In my COVID-19 experience, it took six months for me to recognize I was wasting a golden opportunity to improve my health. After an initial period of status quo with my exercise routine, I realized this was the perfect opportunity to improve my fitness and become a more competitive marathoner.

I had the opportunity to attend a competitor’s conference in back-to-back years, serving as an anchor point for the growth of that competitor. I was stunned to see their roadmap was nearly identical the second year to what they presented the year prior. Everything they planned had shifted back an entire year. I hope this was a wake-up call for that organization.

It is great to identify all the ways we’ve grown. It can be equally valuable to shine a light on the ways we have not changed, especially when they are out of alignment with what we planned.

Reflect back on an anchor point. Did you learn a behavior in that time that still shapes who you are today? Is that behavior serving you well today? If not, how do you want to shift Present You in light of this awareness?

Putting It Into Practice

Use anchor points to generate awareness:

• Identify past events or cycles that can serve as anchor points to ground your reflection.
• Consider how you’ve grown and changed since that time.
• Consider how Present You appears to those who never knew Anchor Point You.
• Reflect upon ways you have not changed.
• Based on this reflection, identify shifts you want to make in your way of being.

Walkabout Corner

When asked how I’m doing, I consciously resist the urge to declare, “I’m busy.” It was an automatic response for much of my career. I can authentically choose that response this week. My walkabout and commitment to openness have given me a greater appreciation of the importance of harmonizing work and life. My work, as of late, continues to be incredibly fulfilling – I’ve just packed a little more into the last few weeks than I would like.

This awareness is shaping the future of my walkabout. I’m grateful to have a three-month window approaching where I will housesit for a friend, giving me the space to settle and reflect. I expect a period of transformation. Perhaps a new anchor point.

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I am an executive coach and life coach with software executive roots in higher education and EdTech. I coach because I love to help others accelerate their growth as leaders and humans. I frequently write about #management, #leadership, #coaching, #neuroscience, and #arete.

If you would like to learn more, schedule time with me.

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